the hollow ache of sitting across from someone who loves you while feeling like an imposter in your own life

The coffee is steaming between you, and the person across the table is smiling at a version of you that feels like a stranger. You are nodding, you are answering, but inside there is a hollow ache where your own life should be.

You feel like an imposter in your own skin, performing okayness while the real you hides behind your eyes. But listen — the light does not need a performance to recognize its own.

It saw the woman at the well, known and exposed, and offered her living water anyway. You do not have to earn your place at this table by being perfect.

The light that rose this morning is already inside you, waiting for you to stop pretending and just be. The mask is heavy, but the truth is light enough to carry into this new day.